Capacitors

[daveq]

I'm building a pedal and am not sure if certain types of capacitors sound worse/better than others. I've done an internet search and found some info but nothing that really says that a certain type will affect the sound in one way or another.

Any ideas on this? What I'm looking for is whether or not metal film, ceramic, ... sound better than others. Is there much of a difference?

Thanks,

Dave

[lovekraft]

I personally prefer poly or mylar caps to ceramic disc caps, and try to keep electrolytic caps completely out of the signal path whenever possible. That being said, for passive electronics there's probably not a huge amount of difference in the sound. If you can hear it, use what you think sounds best - in stompboxes and amps, I always use plastic or mica caps in the signal path, and electrolytics only for power supply filtering, but my main concern is low noise. There may be some vintage mojo in ceramic caps and carbon comp resistors in some circuits, but the noise drives me crazy, so I just don't.

[daveq]

Thanks for the reply.

I've read conflicting things about caps and resistors.

For caps, I've read that tantalum and ceramic should be avoided but I think I saw the schematic for a Boss pedal specifiying many tantalum caps. Oh well.

Are you saying that you don't like carbon comp. resistors? I thought I read that someone said they were a very good choice - warm sounding ?

[lovekraft]

For caps, I've read that tantalum and ceramic should be avoided but I think I saw the schematic for a Boss pedal specifiying many tantalum caps. Oh well.

Yeah, there's a lot of "information" out there - I just waded through as much as I could stand and made what I hope was an informed decision, and I like the sound of what I decided to use.

I have to assume that the reasons manufacturers choose components has more to do with economic, packaging and production issues than tone. Robert Keeley makes good money replacing the cheap components in stompboxes with quality items, and his mods sound much better than the stock boxes. Tantalums and ceramics evidently are quite cheap in OEM quantities, because they end up in a lot of items that would benefit from better caps.

Are you saying that you don't like carbon comp. resistors? I thought I read that someone said they were a very good choice - warm sounding ?

As for carbon comp resistors, they have two nasty habits that are deal-busters for me - they're very noisy, and they "self-adjust" over time, especially when used in high-current, high temperature applications that bring out the "sweetness" they're reputed to add. See RG's Using the Carbon Comp Resistor for Magic Mojo for more info on how they work.

Again, this is all simply my opinion, based on my experience and some empirical evidence, but it works for me. I personally think that most of the tone mojo associated with certain components is wishful hearing, like HiFi Disease in the consumer audio market, but just like those expensive big fat guitar cords, if it makes somebody happy, who am I to take shots at 'em?

[daveq]

Thanks lovekraft -

With the way I've heard tantalum described, I would have thought Boss/Roland would keep them out of their equipment no matter what.

Here's one place I found some opinions on:

CoolTune

I also found a site that described resistor types and their "sound" but it all seems very sketchy to me and very subjective.

SAS Audio

They claim (and I don't doubt them) that the bulk foil resistors by Vishay sounded the best. I don't think I can use them due to size/space constraints for this particular project though. I think I'll stick with what I ordered from DigiKey and Mouser and see how it turns out.

Thanks for the info.